Our reading for this week references philosopher Immanuel Kant’s “das Ding an sich”–or “the thing in itself.” “The thing in itself” refers to an individual’s difficulty to truly comprehend an object because of the meanings and definitions attached to the object. Those meanings and definitions, which differ from person to person, cloud the “prior truth” attached to the object.

It’s an interesting way of viewing the world as this school of thought asks its student to examine their personal biases, but it’s also an incredibly removed and admittedly-Western way of viewing the world. The text states: “…every object and being is defined by its relationships. It is part of networks and only has meaning in relation to its surroundings. Scientists studying nature had sought to know the “thing in itself” and to isolate an organism in a cage or a glass container. Yet to grasp fully any form of life requires studying it in its habitat, where its existence is defined by relations with others of the same species, and by the plants, animals, insects, and microscopic organisms that share its environment. As the analysis becomes more detailed, it must include more and more about the environment, including the climate, food sources, predators, competitors, procreation, and so on.” (9)

In essence, this means that no object exists in a vacuum and its meaning comes from the things that surround it. A spool of thread and a shirt aren’t just two separate objects that happen to be in proximity; there’s a story that can be created around these two objects. One could say the spool of thread was used to fix a hole in the shirt or that the thread was used to sew together the parts of the shirt. We could even go as far as to say that the spool of thread might be embroidery floss and could be used to embroider a pattern on the shirt. The individual meanings of a shirt as a garment and canvas for creation and a spool of thread as a tool for creativity and creation are only created because of each object’s relation to each other.

This relational existence is what makes the conversation about humans, anthropocentrism, and the environmental humanities’ denouncement of said anthropocentrism so interesting. While we as a species have created a lot of problems for nature by distancing ourselves from it, we have also still made ourselves a part of it through our interference. Have you ever seen what a banana or watermelon looked like before humans came up with GMOs, natural or otherwise? Nature shapes us just as much as we shape nature and human interference, in a way, becomes a part of nature.